IPL 2018, Eliminator: 3 Masterstrokes from the KKR vs RR game

The Eliminator was played between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. The two teams that really played like a team and not just depended on one or two players in the league stage. The KKR being the winners will now play against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Qualifier 2 match to seal a place in the finals to be played on 27th May in Wankhade Stadium, Mumbai.

The Rajasthan Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane won the toss and elected to field first. With the chasing team winning 71% of the time and 51% chance of rain playing spoilsport, it was the sensible option.

KKR had a disastrous start as they lost Sunil Narine, the batsman with the highest strike rate in this IPL season on the very second ball of the innings. Robin Uthappa and Nitish Rana soon followed him to the dressing room and KKR were stranded at 24/3 in a high-pressure game. Then Dinesh Karthik came to the rescue and strung good partnerships, first with Shubman Gill and then with Andre Russell to take the team to a respectable score of 169.

Contrary to the start of KKR, Rajasthan had a great opening partnership between Tripathi and Rahane and scored 51 runs in the power play with the loss of one wicket. Now it was the responsibility of the skipper and the young sensation Sanju Samson to take the team home and they were very much on course to do so but Kuldeep Yadav took the wicket of Rahane in the 15th over with 61 runs still left. After the captain's wicket, the required run rate kept increasing and in the end, Rajasthan fell short by 25 runs.

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#1 Archer given the task to break the partnership

KKR had lost 4 wickets before 8 overs. However, Karthik and Gill built a crucial partnership to bring their team back into the game. Both were in great touch and were scoring runs at a good pace.

Just when the partnership looked dangerous from Rajasthan's point of view, Rahane entrusted the responsibility of breaking the partnership to Jofra Archer, who has a reputation of taking wickets. Archer made his captain proud by taking the wickets of Shubman Gill and applied the brakes on the KKR runs scoring.

#2 Bowling a spinner in the death overs

Rajasthan needed 51 runs in the last four overs and the responsibility of restricting them was given to the spinner, Piyush Chawla. It was a huge risk to take because a set batsman was at the crease and he could have gone for a few too many runs but the risk paid off as he took the important wicket of Sanju Samson.

Karthik knew that Rajasthan's lower order was weak and if they get the wicket of Samson, they can restrict them easily. This move proved to be a turning point as their required run rate was just too much after the over.

#3 Believing in young Prasidh Krishna

Even after the wicket of Sanju Samson, Klassen was still at the crease and everybody knows how destructive he can be after India's tour of South Africa. So bowling a young, inexperienced bowler against a good finisher and that too in a high-pressure game was asking for trouble.

Prasidh Krishna proved the choice of his skipper right by giving only 3 runs and taking the wicket of Stuart Binny. Karthik had the choice of bowling a more experienced bowler in Andre Russell but chose not to and that proved to be a masterstroke.